As a veteran, I know transitioning from active military service to the civilian workforce can be a challenging time. Unique skill sets, abilities, and interests all factor into determining their new, civilian career.

As e-commerce continues to alter the retail landscape, more products are being moved throughout more places than ever before and are encountering a multitude of touch points. With this increased interaction comes a greater risk to product integrity, which is paramount to meeting consumer expectations.

Before the emergence of e-commerce, most retailers spent an inordinate amount of time and money perfecting the in-store experience. Stores played music, piped in scents and stationed greeters at the entrance to fold garments over and over (there’s a good reason for that, right?)

Tonight, nearly 795 million people around the world will go to bed hungry. And, that number could climb even higher in the next few decades. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates the world will have to increase our food supply by 70 percent to meet the demands of a population expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050.

At the same time, increasingly erratic and extreme weather caused by a changing climate is making it even harder for farmers to succeed.

Before consumers click the checkout button to complete their online orders, they’ve likely contemplated the shipping options available to them: How much will it cost? How fast will the order arrive? How difficult and expensive will returns be?

But few of us will spend much time wondering exactly how these orders will get to our doors. Where do the products come from exactly? Who or what packs it up? Does it travel by air, land, or sea?

Believe it or not, being in the packaging business is a lot like being an economist. We analyze consumer trends, we dissect the microeconomics of growth markets, and we track even the tiniest shifts in labor statistics or fuel availability in countries around the world.

Why?

Because we need to be ready for whatever comes next. Ready to be the conduit, the conductor, the conveyor of whatever commerce the world requires.

We need to be able to see into the future and be there when it arrives.

Prost! Salud! Slainte! Cheers! Beer lovers from all over the globe are raising their steins this time of year to celebrate Oktoberfest, the largest beer festival in the world. Six million visitors are expected to drink 2 million gallons of beer at the annual festival in Munich, Germany.

Emails, phone calls, text messages, spreadsheets, tweets, blogs (except this one)…… all of this information can lead to daily overload in our workday. The result is often a deluge of information that lacks context, insight or obvious action. How do you know what information needs your immediate attention or what data is negatively affecting your bottom line?

What if you could reduce – or eliminate – the time-consuming and manual process of collecting, processing and analyzing the information for your fleet of cleaning machines? Today, it’s possible.

More people are receiving more goods at their homes than ever before as e-commerce continues to be the shopping method of choice. According to data recently released by the U.S. Commerce Department, e-commerce sales grew 15.8 percent in the second quarter of 2016.